Friday, February 7, 2014

Fantastic Tunes From Manchester's The Collected Fictions Up On Soundcloud

Thanks again Manchester.

I'd love to take credit for finding this band myself but I can't. Mike Schulman of Slumberland Records and Black Tambourine dropped a link to these guys on Facebook and I can see why. The Collected Fictions -- Paris Thompson, Daniel McMilan, and Isaac McInnis -- make lovely indie-pop tunes in the spirit of their named influences (The Clean, The Feelies, Aztec Camera, and The Pastels). I hear all of those here plus a hint of what Vampire Weekend are so desperately trying to do.

This is good stuff and a tune like "Sugarcane" is like a lost, early Arctic Monkeys b-side mixed with a hint of Modern Lovers.

"Wait" has a hint of "Lost Outside the Tunnel" from Aztec Camera and for that it gets my attention.

"Talk" is Orange Juice and The Clean in some wonderful and unholy combination.

"It Don't Matter Much" is Arctic Monkeys trying to piece together a Feelies cut. To me, it sounds perfect -- the tune that you should be hearing on the radio and humming instantly afterwards -- so go check it out now.

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About Me

I write about stuff I like.
Born in Washington, D.C., in 1967, I spent most of my life in Maryland before I moved to Hong Kong at the very end of 2011. I worked in Kowloon, and lived on Lamma Island, for nearly 3 years, and then I moved back to Maryland with my wife at the end of August 2014. When I was younger, I worked in 3 record stores in College Park, Maryland, from 1987 to 1990 and those jobs gave me a lot of joy, as well as a musical education. I was once a huge fan of the cinema of Hong Kong, especially Shaw Brothers titles. An Anglophile, I still gravitate to British films and music. My youth was spent on Marvel comics, and Starlog and Famous Monsters magazines; Universal and Hammer horror movies; the work of Ray Harryhausen; classic American films of the 1930s; Hanna-Barbera cartoons; music from the glory days of American AM radio; lousy TV reruns; Mego toys; and Godzilla flicks...